Part Five: Reputation and Hiring the Right People

Padgett
I came across a well worn quote recently, it was by the famous and highly successful Warren Buffet,
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Pat Padgett the Carpet Cleaner wasn’t Warren Buffet and he wouldn’t have put this thought exactly the same way, but he also knew this to be true. Spending decades as the local serviceman was all about reputation. Communities are small, even our big ones. What was true then is still true today, reputation matters.

A Vulnerable Reputation
There are two primary aspects of a business that are most vulnerable to depleting a reputation, the quality of work accomplished and the people who represent the company, your employees. If I were to heed Warren Buffet’s words I’d have to focus on my hiring. I’d have to hire the right people.

 

Because Pat Padgett had a simpler operation, the company's reputation fell onto his shoulders. My dad’s proximity to his reputation guarded his reputation. But, I was trying to do something different, I was building a company intentionally larger and more complex and so I had to walk carefully and make intentional decisions along the way.

Over time I learned that hiring the right people had a lot to do with being the right company. And so, I pursued after this goal. Building systems, making good hires, focusing on culture, and pursuing everything we do with excellence.

It worked.

Progress and Growth: Building a Winning Team
Our team continued to expand and continued to grow. Few managers develop the talent and skill necessary to realize full and maximum return from their employees.

The managerial task is to take a newly hired person and make them fully productive as quickly as possible. This has a two-sided benefit: the company benefits, produces new revenue quickly, the employee benefits, it provides gratification.

Pat Padgett the Carpet Cleaner employed 4 people up to 1993, In 2015 when Jeff Padgett left Padgett's Cleaning & Restoration, Inc to start the legacy of Servpro Padgett's was employing up to 45 people. Today after 5 years SERVPRO Team Jeffrey Padgett is employing 27 people.

Early on I developed a strategy for hiring good people and keeping good people.

I found that my best applicants came from two sources: people looking for work (at this point I know there are levels of motivation) and employee referrals. I especially valued employee referrals because I know that if someone I already trust is willing to back another with their reputation, they’ll likely fit in well.

I made sure that every hire had clear expectations and even wrote out explicitly what these expectations were, I still do this. I found this to be important because, if a difficult conversation needs to be had, it can happen maturely.

I had this somewhat unorthodox interview strategy that I found effective. I’d present a potential candidate with a group of blocks, each with one letter of the alphabet. I’d ask them to order them in alphabetical order — yes, I did receive a few cock-eyed looks. But what I found was this. I was able to glimpse the character of a person, if only for a moment.

There is something about this task that tests a person’s patience. I’d glimpse the thought process, see how they approached a problem and then see their willingness to receive instruction.

Reflections on Building the Right Team
In those years I was trying, attempting and implementing. Not everything I did was a success, some things were outright failures. But I found the failures were equally important, the wrong hires taught me lessons for the future. In those early years I plowed forward, I still am.

I think back to dad, to what Pat Padgett would think. Would he give me that attaboy, would he be proud of the progress I made?

I know he would. He’d laugh with me at my mistakes and give me his onerous opinion where he felt it was needed.

My Dad was worried about the reputation of Pat Padgett the Carpet Cleaner, but he was also concerned about the reputation of the Padgett name. I wasn’t my fathers employee, though at times I was, I was his son. And he invested himself in me, he taught me the ropes and I continue on, continuing the work, furthering the reputation with each new hire made. It's Not Just A Name, It's A Reputation. 







 

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